Had a quiet night in Council Bluffs, IA, after flying into Omaha because, really, I had no other choice.
On my way to Lincoln now. I'll check in this afternoon.
Photography Credit: Rupert Berrington/Courtesy SCCA
Where can you find the fastest autocross drivers in the country? Look no further than the 2022 Tire Rack SCCA Solo National Championships, September 6-9 at the Lincoln Airpark in Lincoln, Nebraska.
GRM’s own J.G. Pasterjak–Production Manager/Art Director by day, autocross extraordinaire by night–is on the ground and ready to compete.
Follow this thread live updates from the 2022 Tire Rack SCCA Solo National Championships, and feel free to join the conversation–whether you’re also competing or not.
Had a quiet night in Council Bluffs, IA, after flying into Omaha because, really, I had no other choice.
On my way to Lincoln now. I'll check in this afternoon.
Looks like some great weather. I worked the Test and Tune yesterday and it was really a beautiful day.
JG, watch out tonight as they are calling for a pop-up hail storm about dinner time.
For those who are looking for an interesting distraction and are already in town, the IMCA Sprint Car nationals are over at Eagle Speedway about 25 miles east of the air park tomorrow night. 1/3 mile high bank dirt oval.
Nice to see the '80s theme of this year's event being taken seriously.
3 Spokes are back in style! Especially SN95 3 Spokes now being posted on other cars.
Autocross is that thing where Miata's drive around abandoned parking lots, right?
I give you: Tony Savini's bumper car. The greatest pit mobile ever.
That bumper car is awesome
Apexcarver said:That bumper car is awesome
Think of how much better it would be if there were multiples!
Very cool! Is that John Vitamvas's 2.5 Turbo RX-8 in the background? He had a build thread on here, but I haven't seen it in a while.
Just crossed the Mississippi river, that means we're basically there, right?
"where are you paddocked?"
"next to the Lambo. No, the OTHER Lambo."
Honk if you love mismatched wheels
JG Pasterjak said:Honk if you love mismatched wheels
is that half of the clean title, oem motor'd, 3rd gen MR-2's out there anymore?
It all looks awesome. One of these years I am going to make it out there.
Jay Bullington's Audi ripped out the lower shock mount from the control arm and beat the swanky shock all up. He found a suitable but less-high-performance replacement and managed to get a Heli-coil in the scabbed out hole in the control arm and got back in the game. Percy the helpful pup supervised. Yes, there were plenty of jackstands in use.
In reply to JG Pasterjak :
You left out the part where the Audi community found the shock as a dudes spare in less than an hour and had relays set up to get the part to Jay!
Javelin said:In reply to JG Pasterjak :
You left out the part where the Audi community found the shock as a dudes spare in less than an hour and had relays set up to get the part to Jay!
Yep. In a basement in Omaha. Where all the good stuff comes from.
Third Gen F cars on CCW Classics are the platonic ideal of an autocross car.
SCCA Solo Championship week kicks off with the Women on Track brunch. It's a chance for women in Solo to network and take ideas back to their regions about building diversity within the motorsport community.
This year's Solo Nationals has an '80s theme. It's being leaned into
Past SM Champ Dallas Cutler boomed the rear diff in his Evo. 
JG Pasterjak said:Third Gen F cars on CCW Classics are the platonic ideal of an autocross car.
Nice. (And you know what I'd rather say here.)
When your car seized a TOB on the way to grid.
Backup car acquired
In reply to JG Pasterjak :
Nice.
That F body on CCWs is YES!
In reply to CyberEric :
It's pretty perfect.
I see JG is running the JXB S4 on Falkens in XS!
Hi gang. Had to run back to the room to do some work stuff, so a quick update:
The Vette that Hilary and I were supposed to drive seized its throwout bearing literally on the way to grid this morning. So Jay Bullington volunteered the Audi, and they still had the Falkens from KotM in the trailer, so we had Dave Whitworth at SPS do an emergency mount and we got to grid literally less than a minute before last call. Of course, at this point, I hadn't even sat in the car yet, so Jason and Hilary Frank walked me through some basics on the car and how to drive it. To give you some perspective, it has over 600hp and over ONE INCH of rear toe out. That's not a typo. It's basically a methed up badger that's addicted to steroids and murder.
Somehow I snuck in to the final trophy spot by my last run, driving as delicately as possible. Not sure what tomorrow will bring. They're working on the Vette now and trying to get a new TOB in before we have to run, but the Audi will remain plan B, although it's also running in like three different classes, so who knows how far down its fuse has burnt. Golly what a machine, though.
In reply to JG Pasterjak :
commiserations on your complications... but it's cool to see Mayfield doing so well in a car that (I think/assume) is "pulling double duty", after having 24th overall and 5th in class at OneLap this year.
sleepyhead the buffalo said:In reply to JG Pasterjak :
commiserations on your complications... but it's cool to see Mayfield doing so well in a car that (I think/assume) is "pulling double duty", after having 24th overall and 5th in class at OneLap this year.
Yep. Same car.
Makes me real excited for my own 2GR powered mid-engine project.
1 inch of toe-out seems a bit radical.
In reply to David S. Wallens :
I'd be curious to see the process on how they got to 1in toe out in the rear while developing the car, certainly looks like a big patch!
The $2000 Challenge emmisaries have entered the chat in Lincoln
And as for me, what an unbelievable ride.
Corvette owner Justin Peachey found a TOB/slave cylinder yesterday, and a multidisciplinary team set about tearing the car part in the paddock and getting it back in the game. There were a lot of heroes, but Justin, Hilary Anderson, and particularly Zach Moore did an amazing job of just doing whatever it took to make things happen. I don't know how many of you have ever pulled the driveline out of a C5/C6 before, but it's a massive pain in the ass under the best of circumstances. Seeing so many people get involved to make this thing run again—even if if was just somebody passing by that stopped for a second to help push a jack into place or offer someone a rag—was nothing short of heartwarming.
This morning, the Vette appeared on the grid once again and Hilary and I jumped back in and got back to business. I managed to grab the last trophy in seventh, and Hilary pulled herself from 13th after our Audi runs all the way to eighth just a tick behind me . It was an completely heroic effort on course after a legendary effort wrenching on the car the previous night. It was a real honor to share a seat with her and such an honor to be around all the folks that just did whatever it took to make sure the show went on. It was really humbling to see.
I'm certainly going to write more about this in the near future as it was a legit inspirational experience. Aside from all the valor I got to witness first hand, driving two different—very different—cars I'd never sat in before and somehow managing to steal a trophy is just kind of an overwhelming hit right now. I'm gonna enjoy some trophy wings and not set my alarm for tomorrow morning.
Well done.
My first day on site. It's all pretty overwhelming and I haven't taken nearly enough pictures. Tony can't go anywhere without people asking to drive the bumper car (including me).
The Zoomboni is comically popular, it amazes me how many people know about it and are fans. Today a female partner of one of the other competitors came by and asked if she could pose in the car, she was super excited and talked about how jealous her friends were going to be for being in such a machine. A few minutes later I was gridded next to the husband in test and tune area.....in his Viper. Umm, yeah.
I don't know how many of you have ever pulled the driveline out of a C5/C6 before, but it's a massive pain in the ass under the best of circumstances.
Yes I do, all to replace a darn $60 part. Done in my garage with a QuickJack, two transmission jacks and a floor jack with a wooden jig. And I did it all myself without any help. That was a heroic effort by all involved! BTW, you need to use the Truck adapters to get her high enough to get the exhaust back on, if you forget to do it before re-installing the rear sub-frame/suspension.
Good morning.
NoCones is ready to take on AMod.
Let the appearance of the 360 strike fear and doubt in the pits of the fast guys.
Look at our boy in the top 10 here
The rest of AMod is wondering why they had to do so much engineering just to beat a $2000 car.
Since appearing at the Challenge, NoCones' Subaru 360 has seen a lot of improvement, mostly in aero. Most of the aero bits are built from pink insulation foam, covered with fiberglass mat and epoxy resin, which is more expensive than polyester resin, but the poly melts the foam. Dan used chopped mat where he could to save money, and reserved the more expensive woven mat for more mission critical areas. The edges of the lower skirt are supported by wood fence pickets.
the front wing uses a thin metal upper with a plywood bottom that was shaped and sanded to give the wing its profile
In reply to JG Pasterjak :
I bet it looks (even more) wild in person. Can't wait to see it at the Challenge.
In reply to JG Pasterjak :
Given the level of tech, how much, really, did the aero work make the car above $2k?
This is EXACTLY what the Challenge is all about, as far as I'm concerned. Awesome.
In reply to alfadriver :
He's still a couple hundo under budget overall.
What's that? You want a photo dump? Say no more:
And a few more photos for your eyeballs to enjoy:
Think we don't have any more awesome pictures to share? Think again:
Turns out that the coolest car at Solo Nats may not be a car at all:
In reply to JG Pasterjak :
In Lincoln the parking lot is far from abandoned! Great to see people from across the country enjoy our local autocross location. The Nebraska SCCA is spoiled to have such an awesome site.
David Elfering said:In reply to JG Pasterjak :
In Lincoln the parking lot is far from abandoned! Great to see people from across the country enjoy our local autocross location. The Nebraska SCCA is spoiled to have such an awesome site.
The level of competence that you guys put this event on with every year is a thing to behold. I can't imagine what it must be like to have your locals at that site. It must be like playing catch with your best friend on the field where they just played the World Series.
I know not why but my mind only read the white of HART and UDIDIT. Weird
anyway, is there more info on the black fox body?
Mislabeled (east/west) but here is what the bottom of the field in EM looks like. I was woefully slow compared to the other drivers. This is a 76.5 second run.
And here is the short course with a 50.8
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